


sing and cry, "valhalla, i am coming"

by orphan_account



Category: Thor (2011)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-02
Updated: 2011-12-02
Packaged: 2017-10-26 19:12:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was not a conquest. It was an occupation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sing and cry, "valhalla, i am coming"

**Author's Note:**

> The first of the December Fic Fest fills; for [pada_something](http://pada_something.livejournal.com). The prompt was [nanana.](http://weheartit.com/entry/15901606), which I'm pretty sure was supposed to be way more lighthearted than this turned out to be. I know next to nothing about the Thor comics, so this is completely movie-verse, and probably vaguely AU to boot.  
> The Trent Reznor & Karen O cover of "Immigrant Song" is completely to blame for the plot, I fear.

Loki could not tell you how old he is – birthdays are not recorded by the people of Asgard. Time is irrelevant, when there is no end to it. It is allowed to ebb and flow without hindrance.

There was a time when he was younger, though, when he was more than a child but not yet a man, and that was the age they became gods.

 

 

He does not know when the Allfather ( _his father_ , more than any other, and he took satisfaction in that) came to the conclusion, or why. But he distinctly remembers the sound of clattering blades being stacked in the streets with urgency, and the breathless whispers, some pretending not to be tense with excitement, others not even bothering.

It was not a conquest. It was an occupation.

 

 

There was a place, in the center of the city, in between two roots of Yggdrasil so large they look like hillocks of their own, where there lied a pool.

The pool itself was not particularly special; it was really more of a permanent puddle, but for a young lady and her companions (one dark, one fair) in times not-quite-so-far-past, it was an ocean. Not just any ocean, but a great sea, and the krakens rose from it to feast on the sea-dwellers

(“If you want there to be a mermaid, you should grow a tail, Thor, because I won’t be-”)

below, only to be defeated by valiant warriors

(“I claimed it, fair and true!”)

and returned to safety for a little while at least.

But the lady and her companions grew up, and moved on. The pool stayed in the same place, though, and though they would never tell anyone, the three children all come back there on occasion, just to sit.

Never, though, had any of them been there at the same time. Not until a day after the announcement – _they are going to Midgard, to explore and discover and fight_ – when the streets were just starting to rumble with sons yearning to make themselves heroes and mothers watching and hoping for them to come back.

It was the lady who interrupted the dark companion, this time, but he did not mind.

“Exciting, isn’t it?” Sif (for that was her name) did not need to clarify what she was referring to. Battle has always sung in her blood.

“Yes, I suppose it is.” Her companion was dark everywhere but the eyes; Loki’s eyes were icy and tempered. “It’ll give Thor something to do other than provoke halfling Frost Giants, at any rate.”

She laughed at that, and sat next to him. It had been a while since they had spoken like this, outside of councils and ceremonies. The rhythms of childhood are not easy to settle back into. “Although I don’t suppose they will put up much of a fight, these Midgardians.”

He gave her profile a glace, but she did not meet his eyes, choosing to prod at the mud with a stick instead, murkying the water. She held it like a blade, as Sif did everything. “We’re not taking over; at least not officially.”

“Not officially, yes, but that’s only a technicality.” Her hand stilled, and she did meet his eyes. “Make no mistake, Loki. We’re making war. I can feel it.”

 

 

He saw her next in the armoury.

Sif had always been glad to see him, and he her, but there was a glint in her eye now that spoke of terrible things, bloodshed and fire and ice. It was easy to look at Sif and see the childhood friend, the girl whose braids Loki pulled in the garden when she wouldn’t let him go first in a game, but sometimes his mind saw briefly through the memory to the woman underneath, laughing, brave, and unfathomably loyal, but a killing machine, yes. Sif was not one of the Warriors Three; she was set apart. She was their leader and their example.

(The thought stirs something akin to fear but possibly closer to curiosity in his mind.)

This time she was sharpening a blade, the paper-thin _spatha_ that was an extension of her arm when in battle. She knew he was behind her possibly before he entered the room; he could see it in her shoulders, the way they were relaxed with the tension pooling in her lower back. The whetstone spat a few gurgling sparks.

“We journey down the Bifrost tomorrow,” she said without turning, easy.

His finger was running down his knife’s edge. He could not remember drawing it. “I look forward to it.”

 

 

The first thing he felt about Earth was the cold.

Asgard is most of all temperate. The people thrive and the crops grow green and tall, and they leave winter to Jotenheim where it belongs, and Loki had never felt cold before then.

The old women said it was it is a killer that comes in the night, that it hurts you for a while but eventually you stop feeling it at all and you drift away into nothing as easy as a sigh, so bundle up, little children, lest it comes for you.

But that rolling, craggy ground was covered in snow and more was falling, and Loki did not hurt, he was breathing free and clear, and any sting was more like the time he swallowed mint leaves – so fresh and clean it smarted a little.

In the distance, he heard the thunder of a warhammer unique to the universe, and not far away he saw a whirling demon of blades and black hair, and he thought that if the rest of this world was like this, so bright and full of possibility, he would take it over Asgard’s stagnant beauty in a heartbeat.

 

 

The people were proud, it was easy to see; they worshiped his people because they were gods. Every man bows to the gods.

They fought with crude weapons, cruel things made from stones and bronze and animal hide, but they fought.

 

 

Sif found him again, that last time that he needed to be found.

He was in a forest – it was deathly quiet, even the animals treading lightly on the ground, lest they wake the sleeping dead not yet burned on the river – in the cold again.

Her skin was as white as the snow lining the ground (snow that probably had been building over thousands of years, only to be disturbed by perpetrators from a city in the sky-) but her hair was dark as ever, completing the picture of the reaper, the gatekeeper, whatever any particular race chooses to call it. She was a picture of death, the dealer or the thing itself.

“You fought well,” she said. It was not flattery; just statement of a fact. She was still in her mail.

“Yes,” he replied, because what else was there, really, but there was a bit of sadness in it. Not for the killing, but a glimpse of a realization it is impossible to make until your days of glory have faded. Her hand reached up to cup his cheek, long fingers brushing an errant strand of dark hair.

“Yes,” she said, and it is not until minutes later, when their tongues are telling each other what the words won’t quite manage, that he will taste the blood in his mouth.

 

 

Years (thousands, hundreds, who can tell) later and Asgard is beautiful but frozen, never changing, never moving on. Loki looks out of the bay window of his chambers and sees silver and gold steel cascading down the hill like a ribbon, but it is the same view as years ago, when his father looked him in the eye (he had said nothing at the time, his mouth was sewn shut) and told him to move his things to a different wing of the palace.

(It had been a childish action, beautiful golden hair spilling over his fingers and some laughing words, but then he had been a child, hadn’t he?)

No, Asgard does not (cannot) change; only the people will.


End file.
